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 confederate peoples could maintain a long or an equal contest with a nation of similar strength in which the Government should be centralized. A people which should divide its sovereignty into fractional powers, in the presence of the great military monarchies of Europe, would in my opinion, by that very act, abdicate its power, and perhaps its existence and its name. But such is the admirable position of the New World, that man has no other enemy than himself; and that in order to be happy and to be free, it suffices to seek the gifts of prosperity and the knowledge of freedom.